Troy Bolton and the Crappy Resident Adviser
by Unproper Grammar
Summary: When the separation anxiety caused by the abscene of Gabriella hits Troy too hard, he finds himself the next advisee to his unfit resident adviser, one Ryan Atwood. Crossover with The O.C.


Okay, so maybe I'm the only one, but when I saw HSM 3 for the first time (and second and third, for that matter) the first thing I thought when Troy announced he was going to Berkeley was, 'Hey! That's where Ryan Atwood went!'

And then this happened.

Needless to say, I'm pretty sure that by the real canon, Troy and Ryan would be going to Berkeley the same year...but I'm ignoring that and letting myself pretend that, no, he went in 2007 and would be a sophomore when Troy was a freshmen.

And because I am a dork and music is my life, I recommend listening to Bolero by Ravel whilst reading this. :) It makes it more fun.

Oh, and I am such a dork that I Google Map-ped the distance between Stanford and Berkeley and it was 39.9 miles (or 40.0, depending on which address you entered first.) Go see for yourself.

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**Troy Bolton and the Crappy Resident Adviser**

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Turns out Troy had calculated it incorrectly.

Stanford University was indeed not 32.7 miles from University of California, Berkeley. It was in fact 39.9 miles away.

What had he expected, though? Troy was always crap at math. Gabriella always had to help him with anything to do with numbers. God, Gabriella had to help him with everything.

He glared at the computer screen in front of him. 39.9 miles between the two universities, which equalled to a fifty-seven minute drive, which would last up to an hour and twenty minutes in traffic.

How dreadful.

Seated in his dorm room, Troy was slumped across the top of the keyboard of his laptop, feeling love sick and pitiful. It had been six days since he had last seen Gabriella and it was far, far too long. Hearing her voice over the phone was not enough. He wanted to feel her warm skin, longed to see her eyes crinkle when she laughed. He missed the sweetness of her lips, the soft touch her hands. He missed everything.

This sucked so hardcore.

They had only been at university for a little over a month and while the adjustment period was going well, it was still difficult. He had been so used to seeing Gabriella whenever he wanted. She had lived only fifteen minutes away from his house and he had such easy access to her bedroom via the balcony. It was so hard not being able to just fall into the routine he had grown to love.

With a groan he peeled his face off the keyboard and began clicking a few buttons. Maybe he would calculate how long it would take to walk there.

There was a knock on the door and Troy yelled that it was open. It was probably just his roommate, Kenny, who had most likely forgotten his key again.

When the sound of footsteps entered, Troy fell back onto his keyboard with a smash. "Hey, Kenny, do you think if I leave now I can make it to Stanford by morning? It's an eighteen hour walk, but I can walk pretty fast."

'Kenny' cleared his throat and Troy whirled around quickly in his desk chair, painfully aware that the person in his dorm room was not Kenny. He was swallowed.

Standing before him was a tall man about a year or two older than him. Bulky with short, cropped blonde hair, blue eyes and a crooked nose, he smiled very weakly.

"Uh, hi," he said awkwardly. "I'm Ryan Atwood, your resident adviser. I take it you're Troy Bolton?"

Troy nodded mutely. What was his resident adviser doing in his room? Don't you have to request these kind of things? Or maybe this adviser was just particularly over-bearing, oh god, what a year it was going to be then.

"Yeah. Um, any reason to stop by?"

Ryan looked around the room nervously. He was obviously very new at this. "Um, yeah, actually. Uh, do you mind if I...?" he gestured to the messy bed that was on Troy's designated side of the room.

"Sure," Troy said, baffled at what was going on. It was most inconvenient, too. He was set to call Gabriella in half an hour, and he really hoped this wasn't going to take long. "So, um, what brings you to my...uh, dorm room?"

Ryan opened his mouth as if to say something, but stopped. "Well, you see, uh," he paused again and folded his hands together. "I, um," another paused. He took a deep breath. "Okay, I'm just going to level with you. I took this position as an RA because my brother told me I need to work on my social skills and that day I took it to heart and followed his advice, but I really have no idea what I'm doing."

Troy stared at him blankly. Wasn't the RA supposed to help him, not the other way around. "Um, okay. And how do you feel about that?" He had watched a lot of Dr. Phil with his mom in the past. Maybe he could bullshit his way around it.

"Um, not the point, see um, okay." Ryan really sucked at this RA thing, Troy noted. "Your roommate..."

"Kenny."

"Kenny, he came to me the other night and said that you may need a little help. Something about you being glued to the computer screen."

Troy stiffened. Why, Kenny, that scum. How dare he shrink him! "I'm fine, really. Still adjusting, that's all."

"What are you adjusting to? Homesickness?"

Troy swallowed. "Not quite."

"Well then, what?" Ryan said harshly and Troy wrinkled his brow at the tone. "Sorry, not good at this. Just, what has got you glued to the computer screen."

Troy thought for a moment. He could either send this guy packing, which, truthfully was probably a good idea, or he could maybe let go of some of the anxiety he had been feeling. "Okay, well, my girlfriend, Gabriella," he plucked off a picture from the bulletin board above his desk, "This is her, she's at Stanford."

Ryan shifted his eyes, waiting for more information. "Uh, okay."

Troy stared at him blankly. "She's at Stanford. I'm here."

"Yes, I get that. What's the problem?"

"It's a fifty-seven minute drive."

"That's nothing."

"It can last up to an hour and twenty minutes if there's traffic."

"So?"

"It's an eighteen hour walk."

"...You weren't serious contemplating walking to see your girlfriend?" Ryan questioned, his mouth slightly agape.

Troy folded his arms over his chest, slightly offended. "And what if I was?"

Ryan sighed. "Okay, so, let me figure this out. You miss your girlfriend?"

"Pretty much," Troy said, staring at the picture in his hands. God, how he missed her smile. "It's really hard." When Ryan didn't say anything, he proceeded. "I'm just...I'm so not used to being without her. I miss her like crazy and she's so independent that I'm terrified that she'll...that she'll..."

"Meet someone else?" Ryan finished for him. The poor kid. He was so love lorn.

"Yeah," Troy set the picture down and rubbed his temples. "I can't bear to lose her."

Ryan stood and picked up the picture of Gabriella. She was pretty girl, with dark hair and eyes and a kilo-watt smile. "She's pretty."

"She's gorgeous," Troy said, snatching the picture from his hand. "She's ridiculously smart and I don't think she needs me half as much as I need her."

"Like the Blink 182 song?"

"Exactly."

Leaning against Troy's desk, Ryan ruffled his hair. "Look kid, my girlfriend is off...actually, I don't know where she is. She's off doing something slightly insane, that's all I know. But the point is, you have to be confident enough in your relationship to not have to worry about these things all the time."

"I don't really," Troy confessed. "It's just days like this...when I haven't seen her for ages and the fact that I'm not going to see for possibly even longer that I get...weird. I'm a big fan of 'what ifs?'"

"So I've deducted," Ryan smirked.

"I just...I love her." Troy stared back at the picture. "I never thought it would be this hard."

Like a blot of lightening, the full impact of Troy's words hit Ryan. He was suddenly propelled back to four years ago, when blonde hair, blue eyes and sugar lips were his world. When anything that happened to _her_ happened to him and he wanted to save and protect her from anything and everything.

"Ah," Ryan said, calmly, a soft smile coming to his lips. "She's one of _those_."

"What do you mean?" Troy asked, suddenly on edge again.

"The be all and end all," Ryan shrugged, staring at the wall, trying to think of anything but _her_. "The one you can see it all happening with and you're not afraid for one moment."

Troy gazed at the wall, taking in Ryan's words. "Yeah...she is."

Pushing himself off the desk, Ryan began to make his way to the exit. "I had one of those once."

"What happened to her?" Troy asked, tense. What if time and distance had been too much for them? What if that had broken them apart? What if someone had weaselled their way into their relationship and the same would happen to he and Gabi?

Ryan looked down at his feet. "She died three years ago."

Troy's breath caught in his throat. "I'm...I'm sorry."

Ryan waved his hand. "That's life for you. Don't let her go, though, okay?"

Troy nodded and without another word, and just as Ryan made his way outside his door, he paused and turned back to his advisee.

"Please, whatever you do, _don't _walk the eighteen hours to Stanford. It'll only piss her off."

Withouth another word his RA left the room and Troy was left alone to his own devices. The first thing he did, was flick off his computer. Screw you, Google Maps. His calculation probably was correct anyway!

He then dialed Gabriella's number.

"Troy!" her excited voice answered and he felt warmth spread through his entire body at the sound. "You're calling early!"

"I just wanted to hear your voice, babe," he said softly, wishing he could reach out and hold her. "I just had the weirdest encounter with my R.A. ever."

She laughed. "Oh, really?"

Troy rolled over on his bed. "Yeah. He is so not a people person. Anyway, how was your day?"

And he listened to her babble on about her classes and they made plans to meet up the upcoming weekend. And when he hung up he told her he loved her and that he missed her.

But as he crawled into bed an hour later, after receiving a goodnight text from Gabriella, he thought of Ryan and the girl he had lost. How devastating it would be to lose...no, he couldn't even think about it. And he so prayed to God and to whomever was listening in hopes that he and Gabriella should never meet a fate such as theirs.


End file.
